tree-hugger

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Villagers hugging the trees to stop them from felling

The Chipko movement (literally "to cling" in Hindi) was a group of peasants in the Uttarakhand region of India who acted to prevent the felling of trees and reclaim their traditional forest rights that were threatened by the contractor system of the state Forest Department. The movement began in Chamoli district in 1973 and spread throughout the Uttarakhand Himalayas by the end of the decade. In Tehri district, Chipko activists would go on to protest limestone mining in the Dehradun hills in the 1980s as well as the Tehri dam, before founding the Beej Bachao Andolan or Save the Seeds movement that continues to the present day. In Kumaon region, Chipko took on a more radical hue, combining with the general movement for a separate Uttarakhand state.

One of Chipko's most salient features was the mass participation of women villagers. ^[1] As the backbone of Uttarakhand's agrarian economy, women were most directly affected by environmental degradation and deforestation, and thus connected the issues most easily. How much this participation impacted or derived from the ideology of Chipko, has been fiercely debated in academic circles. ^[2] Despite this, both female and male activists did play pivotal roles in the movement including Gaura Devi, Sudesha Devi, Bachni Devi, Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Sunderlal Bahuguna, Govind Singh Rawat, Dhoom Singh Negi, Shamsher Singh Bisht, etc.

At its height, Chipko gained widespread attention from the international environmental movement that was making major headway in drawing global attention to ecological concerns. Unlike, environmentalists of the West, Chipko was thought to embody an "environmentalism of the poor" ^[3] and thus a novel example of the growing reach of environmental concerns. The tactic of tree hugging, long an epithet for environmental activists in general, also inspired and fired the imagination of activists in the West.

The movement was honoured with a Right Livelihood Award in 1987.

Chipko Slogans

Surviving participants of the first all-woman Chipko action at Reni village in 1974 on left jen wadas, reassembled thirty years later.

"What do the forests bear? soil, water and pure air."

"Embrace the trees and Save them from being felled; The property of our hills, Save them from being looted."

"Ecology is permanent economy."

"The solution of present-day problems lie in the re-establishment of a harmonious relationship between man and nature. To keep this relationship permanent we will have to digest the definition of real development: development is synonymous with culture. When we sublimate nature in a way that we achieve peace, happiness, prosperity and, ultimately, fulfilment along with satisfying our basic needs, we march towards culture." -- Sunderlal Bahuguna, leading Chipko activist

Also See

Sundarlal Bahuguna

References

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